I though I must add a couple great reasons why Watir(+Ruby) makes a lot
more
sense than those $$$ automation tools.
Today while running through our automated scripts that are being developed
for a module that iself is under development, many scripts failed due to the
fact that some object names changed. Since all my object references are
in a centralized Object Repository, it only took me a few minutes to get the
script back in order.
Prior to Watir, I have not had this much success in having a parallelism
in product
development with test automation (UI) development. In fact most tool
vendors
only suggest that the automation should start when the product is
stable. The
$$$ tool vendor's only weapon against this is a 'record and playback'
option.
I dont intend to start this war here, but those who have used record and
playback
know what it's worth.
Even if it is not possible to test the UI before complete development, I
think it
should be possible to start the test automation scripting process with a
prototype.
This episode takes my memory back to a couple of years where I was in a
similar
situation and I had to build some extensions to get our product work
with a proprietory
(and heavily expensive) tool. First, it took me a while and a few
support mail
exchanges to get them to accept that the tool can't do what I wanted -
both in the
basic form and their supposed 'advanced scripting mode'. Then when I had
to start
building an enhancement to workaround the problem, an equal amount of
time was
spent exchanging questions both with the support folks and the
discussion forums
to find some useful information about some 'helper' libraries that were
shipped along
with their product CD.
With Watir - no issues. In just over a month, not only did we have a
bunch of scripts
automated, we built all the enhancements that we needed - Oh - the
possibilities of
open source!
A great tool ! A great community behind it!
Raghu
Bret Pettichord wrote:
Watir is rapidly attracting users. (We pronounce it 'water'.)
Many of our users are new to Ruby and even new to object-oriented
languages.
In fact, they can't tell where Watir ends and Ruby begins. Thus, they
end up asking lots of questions to the Watir mailing list
([email protected]) that are really just Ruby questions.
I gave a presentation of Watir's precursor at the Ruby Conference 2003
in Austin. At that time, i said that we were using Ruby as our
scripting language because it was intuitive and easy to learn for
non-programmers.
But now they are wanting to read data from spreadsheets or csv files
or initialization files. Or they want to create libraries. Or they
want help with Test::Unit.
I consider myself middling in my Ruby skills. I've heard meta-classes
explained at least three times and still don't understand them. But
i'm one of the more knowledgable people on the list.
We could use your help. If you are interested in helping new users
learn how to use Ruby, please consider joining our mailing list. (Or
you could just help Brian with his book.)
Oh, and BTW, we now have a gem for Watir ('gem install watir'). It has
unit tests and rdoc. And yes, Watir only works on Windows and only
with Internet Explorer. I offer apologies to the OSS gods.
http://wtr.rubyforge.org/
Bret
_____________________
Bret Pettichord
www.pettichord.com
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